1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a windshield wiper device and a method of setting the same on an automobile, and more particularly, is directed to an improvement in a windshield wiper device for use in an automobile in which an elastic blade element attached to a wiper blade is prevented from coming in contact with windshield when the wiper blade stays in an inoperative position, and further to a method of easily setting the windshield wiper device improved in accordance with the invention on a body of the automobile.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has been proposed a windshield wiper device of an automobile having a wiper blade which has an elastic blade element attached thereto and so positioned as to prevent the elastic blade element from coming in contact with a windshield in order to avoid deformation of the elastic blade element when the windshield wiper device is kept in an inoperative condition. One of such previously proposed windshield wiper devices is disclosed in, for example, the Japanese patent application published before examination under publication number 55/25609.
In the windshield wiper device thus proposed previously, a blade lifter which is provided with an arm holding portion for holding a wiper arm to which the wiper blade is supported is fixed in a space in which the wiper arm accompanied with the wiper blade is concealed, in such a manner that the wiper arm is held to lift the wiper blade supported thereby so as to keep the elastic blade element upward from the windshield when the wiper blade attached the wiper arm is concealed together with the wiper arm. With the blade lifter functioning thus, the elastic blade element is prevented from being deformed under a situation wherein the windshield wiper device is in the inoperative state.
It is necessary for the windshield wiper device provided with such a blade lifter as mentioned above that the wiper arm is so disposed as to be surely held by the arm holding portion of the blade lifter, regardless of the amount of friction resistance which occurs between the windshield and the elastic blade element wiping a surface of the windshield and is varied in accordance with a surface condition of the windshield, whenever the wiper arm is concealed. Therefore, the wiper arm is provided with torsional deflection to have a tendency to oversweep beyond the blade lifter by a positioning tool which is prepared specifically for the wiper arm when the wiper arm and the wiper blade attached to the wiper arm are mounted on a body of the automobile. Such a disposal of the wiper arm with use of the specific positioning tool results in a disadvantage on the previously proposed windshield wiper device employing the blade lifter that complicated work conducted for relatively long time is necessitated for mounting the wiper arm and the wiper blade attached to the wiper arm on the body of the automobile.